She is funny with a quick wit, strong willed, loves animals, a sporty tomboy with a major girly side and beautiful, inside and out. She makes friends easy. I got her permission to talk about her so maybe she can help some other kids.
Some history. When she started school she liked it but would come home stressed, worn out and usually had a headache. She would need to lay down on the couch for at least a half hour before doing anything. As she got older, she had difficulty reading and we had her in the schools reading groups. Other things were tough for her. Times tables and tests.
She had a wonderful 4th grade teacher who knew she was trying hard but not able to focus for long in class and had to say her name to get her attention. We had her tested for ADD. Some things fit, some didn't. She didn't qualify as having ADD, her score was just above the clinical level.
That summer between 4th and 5th grade we took our annual trip up to the family cabin and that year one of my aunts and uncle came up. For some reason my aunt, step mom and I were talking about my daughters difficulties and my aunt said after we get home come to her house and she can do some tests.
I didn't know what my aunt did for a living but knew she helped my cousins son who has Autism get these special glasses. I didn't think anything would come of it but the kids and I love going to her house so I figured worst case scenario is we would have a nice visit.
She asked me tons of questions. Asked my daughter tons of questions. Had her look at various white papers with black lines, describing what she saw. Fluorescent lights on and off. The things my daughter described what she saw were strange. My aunt had a picture of these 4 dolphins of various colors and my daughter could only see one and a couple of fins.
She then had this foreign language sheet and had my daughter look at one word and put these colored overlays on top and asked her what felt better. She narrowed it down to this rose color. My aunt then had her read from this 4th grade reading sheet and my daughter got stuck on the word "shell" and couldn't say it. Almost like a stutter. My aunt put this rose overlay over the top and my daughter started reading like I had never heard before. She then gave her 5th then 6th grade reading sheets with the overlays and my daughter was reading like a pro. I wanted to cry! My aunt told my daughter she was just showing off now and my daughter was beaming.
Just going back and remembering that moment makes me cry all over again.
So my daughter was diagnosed with Irlen Syndrome ( named after the woman who figured it out) it also is called Scotipic Sensitivity. 10 to 12% of the population has this and most of us have never heard of it. Basically it has nothing to do with vision, just perception. Kind of like a dyslexia but affects people differently. Fluorescent lighting makes it worse, what school doesn't have that kind of lighting? Glossy white paper with black letters is horrible, every textbook out there is like that. Headaches in that kind of lighting is common. Looking back when my daughter was young, shopping wasn't easy for her, stores all have that horrid lighting. I know fluorescent lighting is GREEN, but they have no place in our home.
Luckily there are solutions. You can use overlays on textbooks, have the teachers use different colored paper. We went a different route since we felt you cant overlay the world. Traffic signs, stores and such all are tricky to cover. We had her fit with these tinted lenses. We had her vision checked and it was fine so we bought glasses frames, had my aunt test her for the right tint (took hours) which is hugely important. Sent them to the Irlen institute in California to be tinted. Two weeks later she got her glasses and within 24hours, my girl read an 125 page book!So now she has these pretty subtle green lenses she wears at school. She always has a visor on (except at home) to help block the light.
End result, she has some learning issues to catch up on, but loves reading almost never has headaches and now is getting all A's and B's (with her hard work). I am so proud of her.
This syndrome is usually hereditary and my has never liked to read husband put on her glasses, looked at a book and exclaimed " I can see the whole page!"
If you have a child with classroom or reading issues it may be worth looking into. You can go to
to find out more and to locate a diagnostician near you. I feel it was fate that had my aunt at that cabin that year other wise we may never had found out.
Happy Thanksgiving and Blessings to you all!
2 comments:
How wonderful that she was able to diagnose that for her! My son has reading issues as well. It looks like dyslexia, but I'm going to visit that site and check it out.
Thank you for sharing your story. I have never heard of this before. Like Sarah said, it must have been incredible to get the diagnoses and help your daughter.
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